


Stoking the Forge

by jadebloods



Series: HSWC 2013 Fills [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, HSWC, Homestuck Shipping World Cup, Pregnancy, Prompt Fill, Tentabulges, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 23:26:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadebloods/pseuds/jadebloods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jade told you that her species carried eggs, you weren't sure what you expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stoking the Forge

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill for the HSWC Bonus Round 1, with the following [prompt](http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/3493.html?thread=453797#cmt453797):
> 
> "In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." - Margaret Atwood
> 
> I tagged this with pregnancy, but it's more implied and discussions of. Nobody is actually pregnant (yet).

When Jade told you that her species carried eggs, you weren't sure what you expected. 

The basics of Alternian livestock reproduction hadn't been lost on you-- two individuals pail internally, one of which carries the genetic material and cultivates the development of the grub until parturition-- but admittedly you were fuzzy on the details beyond that. That particular niche was the forte of other individuals whom you didn't really want to be thinking about at this exact moment.

_What a bulge-killer_ , as you think you might have heard someone say once.

It was hard to over-think the vulgar intricacies of viviparity and its unsavory enthusiasts right now, what with how Jade was in your lap, manipulating your over-worked thinkpan with chemistry and bright, shining sensory stimuli. You had once mistakenly thought that you'd gotten used to the changes in your body, such as the heightened olfactory sensitivity, or the ability to hear the throbbing of someone's vascular pump from five arbitrary length units away. It didn't strike you as disconcerting anymore that you could tell that someone new had entered the room just from the elevation in temperature.

Dave had helped you with that. Rose had helped you with that. Humans were remarkable creatures, if completely fucking inscrutable nearly all of the time. And anyway, those were different quadrants.

You'd handled it, until you met Jade.

You might be able to glow, but Jade could _shine_. With all the senses, she could shine, and you could feel her vitality buzzing deep into your calcified frame. You felt it then, and you feel it now, although the buzzing is somewhat dampened by her laughter when her hair gets tangled in your horns. It's infectious, and you find yourself laughing along with her, although you don't really know why you're doing it. She makes it easy to laugh. It's uncomplicated, which as humans go is something of a breath of fresh air.

"Hang on, my-- ow, just a second," she says through fading fit of giggles, bringing up her arms to undo the knot of hair wrapped around your hooked horn. She stops manipulating you for a moment to manipulate _that_ , and you take the opportunity to breathe, just a little, but that still isn't an escape. You are familiar with human scent by now, which is always different between individuals but still recognizable as distinctly human, but Jade is a bit more different than most-- not that you have an enormous sample size to work with, but you have a feeling it's the barkbeast in her. Her hair in your face smells musky, earthy, and when she brushes her arms on your cheek, it's different-- tangy. Overall, she smells like soil, and you tell her as much.

"Yeah, that happens," she replies, still focused more on her hair than on giving a satisfying explanation, although you're sure you probably don't want to know what she means by that. There's dirt under her fingernails, and that should probably put you off, but it doesn't. When she finishes with her hair she pulls her shirt over her head, and the tangy, earthy smell is stronger, all over her skin. You reach out and touch it, illuminating her brown body with your glowing white and feeling the soft, dark hair under your fingertips. Hair on the body. How alien. How tactile. It pulls into bumps as you continue spreading your fingers over it, the hairs standing up straight, and Jade shifts back in your lap as you run your thumb over the poison ducts on her rumble spheres. ( _Wait, no. That's not right. Viviparity, remember? Those are milk ducts._ ) She pulls in an audible breath, her laughter now completely dissolved, and you seem to have her full attention. Finally. She's commanded yours for long enough.

The conversation had gone something like this:

GG: so are you still bummed about losing your grub mother? 

GA: I Havent Thought About It In A While 

GA: To Be Honest Ive Had Other Problems To Deal With For So Long That The Propagation Of My Species Has Fallen Far Down On My List Of Priorities 

GA: Its Strange How Far My Priorities Have Shifted Actually 

GA: Seeing As How That Was The Whole Point Of My Role In The Game 

GA: Or Maybe Its Just That I Would Rather Focus My Finite Energy On Problems That Can Actually Be Solved 

GG: wow that is a super defeatist attitude, i am disappointed in you 

GG: nature always finds a way, ok 

GG: if i could promise you one thing, it would be that for sure! 

GA: That Is Probably Easy For You To Say 

GA: As A Member Of A Species That Can Procreate Autonomously Without The Necessity For A Third Party 

GG: hmmmm...... 

GG: HMMMMMMMM......... 

GA: Hmm 

GA: ? 

GG: well what was the grub mothers role exactly anyway? 

GA: Mother Grub 

GA: She Laid The Eggs And Fertilized Them With The Genetic Material From The Pails Collected By The Imperial Drones 

GG: she didnt pass on any genes of her own??? 

GA: Not Until It Was Time For Her To Lay Another Matriorb And Propagate Her Own Kind In Order To Replace Herself 

GG: wow that is kind of sad 

GG: but also sort of noble? i guess?? 

GG: it is very alien to me but it kind of makes sense too 

GA: Im Not Positive That Noble Is The Right Word For It 

GG: ok but... 

GG: it sounds to me like all you need is an egg and genetic material from two people 

GG: do i have that right? 

GA: If You Want To Be Simplistic About It 

GA: Yes 

GG: well boy howdy do i have some exciting news for you!!

A few minutes later you found yourself tilting your head with some disconcert at a diagram of human egg sacs, which looked nothing like anything a mother grub had ever produced. You had been concerned at first, wondering how there was even room in her body for so many eggs, given her size, but she told you that they were microscopic. Microscopic eggs. Would wonders never cease?

You weren't sure what you'd been expecting, but microscopic eggs hadn't been it. That much was for certain.

You also weren't sure that a human egg could cultivate a troll grub, or even a half-troll grub, as you supposed the case would have to be. You weren't sure if such offspring would even be viable, but you weren't opposed to the idea of trying. It was better than doing nothing, and wasn't this your role? Wasn't this her role as well? You know, stoking the forge and all of that?

Something is definitely getting stoked, but you aren't clear on whether you're stoking her or she's stoking you. The fact is that she keeps sighing when you stroke her milk duct, which is darker than the rest of her and is now pulling up in a manner similar to the hairs, and your bulge is responding to the sound of her breathing, shifting restlessly under your skirt, under her lap. Maybe it's both, and you're stoking each other. Yeah, that sounds right.

A thought arises seemingly out of nowhere, and you wonder idly if she's going to start releasing milk if you stroke it too long. How in the name of the Mother do these things work, anyway? You glow brightly for a moment in a bit of panic over biology that you don't understand, but then Jade kisses you and you glow even brighter.

Everything is too close, too strong. You can feel the beat of her vascular pump pulsing in her _lips_ , and you're pulsing too, in your pump and your hands and down in your lap, in your bulge. You hear beating in your ears and you have no idea if it's your pump or hers, or both, and you have to force down the urge to bite because it is not feeding time. No matter how intricately linked the two rituals are for rainbow drinkers, _this is not feeding time and you will fucking behave_.

You drop your hands to her bare legs, feeling more thin hair but avoiding the denser patch for now. You don't think you're ready to investigate that just yet. Jade seems to have different plans, however, because she's pulling up your skirt and exposing your bulge, which is coiling in on itself with how eager it is to slide into her-- too eager, because you again find yourself having to will your body to behave your mind. No. Not yet. Not _yet_. Not until she says you can.

"This is how you do it, right?" she asks, and you aren't sure what she means at first. "Your genetic material comes out of this thing?" She reaches down between her sturdy thighs and touches your bulge gingerly, which wraps around her fingers and squeezes rhythmically. You close your eyes and hold your breath for a moment, bottling up an involuntary noise before answering in the affirmative. She stares down at your bulge with glassy eyes for what seems like an eternity, like the life cycle of a star, before speaking again. "Ok well, I'm going to have to put you, um… inside me. For this to work. Is that ok?" 

You tell her that it's more than okay. That it is in fact preferable. What you don't say is that if she doesn't put you inside her you might actually go supernova, but it's true nonetheless.

You have a feeling that you might wind up going supernova before this whole thing is said and done, anyway.


End file.
